Reviews

1972

Maximum Joy Station M.X.J.Y. LP reissue

1982’s Station M.X.J.Y., one of the definitive statements in the lexicon of dubbed-out ’80s post-punk and the sole LP from Bristol’s MAXIMUM JOY, was reissued earlier this year because reality is truly cyclical (as is subcultural influence). A collaboration between an ex-POP GROUP guitarist, some former members of GLAXO BABIES, and teenage vocalist Janine Rainforth, MAXIMUM JOY lifted from many of the same primary sources as the other projects on their collective CVs, as well as their Y Records labelmates like the SLITS and PIGBAG—serrated post-punk, wobbly dub reggae, elastic funk, experimental jazz, etc. Janine’s ecstatic vocals, the fiery blasts of horns, and some scrabbling polyrhythms made their debut single (and arguably, best-known song) “Stretch” an all-time mutant disco banger, but given the long-playing format of Station M.X.J.Y., the band seized the opportunity to really dig into some simmering and often largely instrumental grooves. “Do It Today” and “Searching for a Feeling” hit closest to the frenetic punk-funk energy of “Stretch,” leaving the LP’s more drawn-out, slow-burning tracks like “Mouse an’ Me” or “Let It Take You There” to soundtrack the morning after the dancefloor. If you’ve enjoyed the contemporary update of this particular sound by bands like the WORLD and NAKED ROOMMATE and haven’t fully worked your way backward yet, now is the time!

Maximum Joy Stretch / Silent Street-Silent Dub 12″ reissue

This is a reissue of the classic 12″ single every avowed post-punk head should have in their bins. Formed from members of the classic Bristol bands GLAXO BABIES and the POP GROUP and fronted by the effervescent shouts and screams of Janine Rainforth, the group was a continuation of those two groups’ deep funk and dub roots. Scratchy guitar and a crisp upfront street-beat drum sound, it’s no surprise this was a co-release with 99 Records (NY label home to dance punk favorites ESG and LIQUID LIQUID). If you have an aversion to slap bass, this is definitely not for you, but the rest of us will keep the dancefloor warm for you til it’s over.

Second Layer Courts or Wars LP

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Adrian Borland and Graham Bailey of gloomy UK post-punks the SOUND were simultaneously making music as the duo SECOND LAYER, leaving the SOUND’s peacoats-and-clove-cigarettes atmosphere behind to conduct some SUICIDE-schooled, end-times electro-punk exorcisms. Courts or Wars compiles SECOND LAYER’s output up to their 1981 LP/final release World of Rubber (1979’s Flesh as Property EP, 1980’s State of Emergency EP, and five orphaned tracks)—almost everything here was also included in Dark Entries’ expanded 2015 reissue of World of Rubber, so not exactly unturned stones, and the real highs come from the pair of EPs. Borland does his best menacing Alan Vega whisper over Bailey’s sparse, ice-cold synth/rhythm box strobe on “Metal Sheet,” “Courts or Wars” layers fuzzed-to-oblivion guitar and primitive drum machine drone like 39 CLOCKS without the ’60s garage obsession, and “State of Emergency” clatters through a dystopian techno-hell very similar to the one that CABARET VOLTAIRE’s “Nag Nag Nag” stalked just a year prior; “Split Screen” is the unreleased keeper, with a cracked, unrelenting mechanical disco beat and Borland’s echo-submerged vocals wavering like transmissions from a shortwave radio in some bombed-out bunker. Maniacally monochrome as all get-out.

The Gordons The Gordons LP + Future Shock EP reissue

The twin gold-standards of ’80s Kiwi DIY, newly reissued and made accessible once again (as they should forever be). Christchurch’s GORDONS laid down a fully-formed statement of intent on their debut, 1980’s three-song Future Shock EP, with flares of white heat intensity sparking against an unyielding mechanical grind—plenty bleak and austere in a post-JOY DIVISION trajectory, but always fully visceral. The title track is a nearly five-minute pressure burst of jagged, lacerating guitar and increasingly desperate vocals, like MISSION OF BURMA in total panic overdrive, with “Adults and Children” taking the insistent rhythmic jabbing of UK post-punk acts like GANG OF FOUR to its harshest (and loudest) extreme. That caustic sheet-metal clang stretched and sprawled into some extended drones for the GORDONS’ self-titled 1981 LP, existing in the liminal space between the cold, foreboding soundscapes of WIRE’s 154 and GLENN BRANCA’s guitar-driven No Wave wall-of-sound, to eventually be followed by SONIC YOUTH’s own reinvention of the latter. Both the EP and LP were originally self-released by the band, but given a wider re-release (for the first, and until now, only time) by Flying Nun back in 1988, and the significance of that retroactive endorsement by the most influential of labels in the NZ underground is major—this is about as far as you can get from common conceptions of the “Flying Nun sound,” and the GORDONS will absolutely dismantle any mental hierarchies of such that you might have already formed.